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Catalonia’s two biggest organisations join forces for final stages of referendum campaign

Òmnium Cultural and the Catalan National Assembly, Catalonia’s two biggest pro-referendum groups, launched a joint campaign seeking to grant the support of some 100,000 volunteers, and eventually convince half-million undecided voters. The campaign Ara és l’hora [“Now is the time”] has two major dates marked on the calendar: September 11, Catalonia’s national day, and November 9, when the referendum on independence is meant to take place.

Vilaweb | The ANC and Òmnium want to convince a half million voters to vote Yes-Yes“Ara és l’hora” [It’s time] is the slogan for the ANC and Òmnium Cultural’s mobilization campaign launched today so that the November 9th referendum can be celebrated, and won. The high point of the mobilization will be the creation of a giant letter V on September 11th in Barcelona (see details here), where both groups will call for the “largest demonstration in the history of Catalonia”. “The objective is not only to vote, but also to win. We have to guarantee that since we’re going to vote, that we also win. For that reason, we need to add 500,000 additional Yes-Yes voters,” explained the campaign coordinator, Oriol Solé.

As the Catalan daily Ara explains, the action will not be limited to those two dates but will rather be an “American-style campaign”:

Diari Ara | Objective: to convince half-million undecided voters
“Now is the Time” wants to strengthen the social majority in favor of independence. It plans to accomplish this by direct, one-to-one contact, an approach that evokes elements of the digital campaigns of “constant contact with voters” that characterized the electoral campaigns that carried Barack Obama and Dilma Rousseff to the presidency of the USA and Brazil. It is therefore no coincidence that the campaign has incorporated Blue State Digital, the company that managed the digital campaigns of Obama and Rousseff, and also that of the British unionists Better Together. The company has joined the team of international advisors to the promoters of Now is the Time, which has entrusted its strategic direction to University of Lleida professor Jordi Segarra.

The campaign will carry out up to a thousand events throughout the country from today through 9 November, the most important date of this year, according to the presidents of the ANC and Òmnium.